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Apple Faces 25% Tariff Threat Unless iPhone Manufacturing Moves To US 227

Posted by msmash from the tussle-continues dept.
President Donald Trump on Friday threatened Apple with a 25% tariff unless the company manufactures iPhones sold in America domestically rather than in India or other overseas locations. Trump posted on Truth Social that he had "long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple" about his expectation for US-based iPhone production, warning that failure to comply would trigger the substantial tariff penalty.

The ultimatum follows Trump's expressed displeasure with Cook during his recent Middle East trip over Apple's plans to build iPhones at newly constructed Indian facilities. Apple has historically maintained that domestic iPhone manufacturing remains unfeasible due to insufficient skilled engineering talent and substantially higher production costs compared to Asian facilities.

Apple Faces 25% Tariff Threat Unless iPhone Manufacturing Moves To US More | Reply

Apple Faces 25% Tariff Threat Unless iPhone Manufacturing Moves To US

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  • So, Tim... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mr. Dollar Ton ( 5495648 ) on Friday May 23, 2025 @08:18AM (#65398313)

    It appears that one million in inauguration money isn't enough an appeasement for the King.

    What you gonna do now?

    • Re: So, Tim... (Score:5, Funny)

      by pele ( 151312 ) on Friday May 23, 2025 @08:20AM (#65398319) Homepage

      He'll get Ive to knock out some quick designs for the new 747? And pay for servicing? Call it iForce one?

      • iForce One is a good one!

        • Re: So, Tim... (Score:5, Funny)

          by fred6666 ( 4718031 ) on Friday May 23, 2025 @09:38AM (#65398627)

          Except that you need a dongle adapter to be able to attach to boarding gates. And it can only land and take off from iRunways.

          • And refuels only when upside down

            • You're flying it wrong.

          • Except that you need a dongle adapter to be able to attach to boarding gates.

            Why aren't boarding gates USB-C...?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Jerrry ( 43027 )

          iFarce One

      • Re: So, Tim... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by ihavesaxwithcollies ( 10441708 ) on Friday May 23, 2025 @09:42AM (#65398653)
        I think trump wants a free Iplane. Come on, Tim. Just give the orange baboon his bribe already!

    • It appears that one million in inauguration money isn't enough an appeasement for the King.

      You act like that is a big number. But in reality they earned that number in the time it took me to write this post. No I'm not joking. $24bn of quarterly net profit works out to be about $1m every 5 minutes.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by dbialac ( 320955 )
      Pulling out the world's smallest violin for Tim Cook who sells an iPhone at an extraordinary profit margin.

      • Sure. I'm not even sorry for his customers who sold a kidney. But seeing him squirm and grovel before the don like the zuck, the musk and the testosterone ex of MacKenzie Scott will bring a chuckle.

    • It appears that one million in inauguration money isn't enough an appeasement for the King.

      What you gonna do now?

      He should probably buy $100M worth of DJT and $100M worth of $TRUMP. Maybe buy Trump a jet, too. We seem to have decided that naked bribery of the president is fine, and it's clearly far cheaper than the billions it would cost to move manufacturing to the US or the cost of paying a 25% tariff.

  • the party of small governement (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ZombieCatInABox ( 5665338 ) on Friday May 23, 2025 @08:18AM (#65398315)

    and free enterprise.

    • Re:the party of small governement (Score:5, Insightful)

      by shilly ( 142940 ) on Friday May 23, 2025 @08:45AM (#65398393)

      They are the party of untrammelled power. There's no point in laughing at MAGA for being duped by their false promises if we are duped into calling them hypocrites. Hypocrisy is when people act inconsistently, in bad faith, because of some ulterior motive. But this party is consistent in exercising untrammelled power, saying and doing everything that exercises that power. It is uninterested in whether the things it says and does are internally coherent with each other, so long as they are means of exercising power. The filibuster is a great example. If the GOP can use the filibuster to exercise power, it will; if it can sidestep it or dismantle it to exercise power, it will. It will do both at the same time, if that means exercising more power. The question of hypocrisy is absolutely irrelevant to its thinking, actions and words

    • If Bush Jr didn't destroy the R party of small government (he did), Trump surely has.

    • Re:the party of small governement (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Friday May 23, 2025 @09:14AM (#65398515)

      Apple and Harvard should unironically start flying the gadsden flag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • Trump was a Democrat.This is a new party that is growing out of the ashes of the old Republican party.

      Hopefully, the Democrat's ashes will also grow something better. Seriously, do better.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by ihavesaxwithcollies ( 10441708 )
        Trump is whatever the person with the most money says he is. He's a fat, digusting, old, orange amorphous shapeshifting blob.

    • Re:the party of small governement (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Torodung ( 31985 ) on Friday May 23, 2025 @09:41AM (#65398641) Journal

      Fascism - yes I say that word - means corporatism. Not in the common modern usage (run by and for the benefit of corporate structures) but Mussolini's fascist corporatism [wikipedia.org].

      It's a novel take on ownership of the means of production. In effect, the owners of the means of production serve the government and bargain for their own interests. The State is the gatekeeper of profits, and claims to speak for the workers while lining its own pockets with offers from vassal owners. But they do precious little for the worker; it's a racket. In return, the government rewards the compliant with its favor ("Pray I don't alter it any further"). The term "totalitarianism," though a more benign form in this case, also has its roots here, because the government is baked and embedded into every aspect and form of industry. DOGE is also "embedding" itself in the government sector to consolidate centralized control there as well. It's all a play to consolidate autocratic rule, so as to gain a fascist autocracy. We have fascism. We have authoritarianism. They're still working at establishing autocracy.

      This version of corporatism is literally a defining characteristic of fascism. There is no doubt what kind of government is being run here. All you TDS people can go to hell or read a history book, which is probably hell for y'all anyways. I've been calling this guy "Il Duce" since his first administration. This is classic 1930's-flavored bullshit, and the administration fully understands what it is doing. Mussolini never spoke for "the workers" and neither does Trump.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by ihavesaxwithcollies ( 10441708 )
      When did Obama and Btden shakedown corporations?

    • Not since the populist takeover. And now we're not even talking populism, because this move is anything but popular. Now we're just into straight corruption and naked authoritarianism.

      This government is literally taking food and medicine from poor and elderly people to give tax cuts to billionaires that won't even notice the extra money from the tax cut. But hey, somehow that's going to "Make America Great / Healthy Again" right?

  • This is silly (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Friday May 23, 2025 @08:21AM (#65398321)

    Manufacturing in the US would be far more than 25% more expensive. Hence Apple will simply raise the prices by 25%, especially as all the other phone makers will face the same problem. Get f***** US customers, a lot of you voted for this crap.

    • Re:This is silly (Score:4, Insightful)

      by e3m4n ( 947977 ) on Friday May 23, 2025 @08:28AM (#65398335)

      I agree, its probably cheaper with tariffs than paying 1st world labor prices. Eventually the only way it returns to the US is via fully automated robotic assembly. Not sure how that creates jobs.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Indeed. An there is the tariffs on raw material and components as well. No way around those, a lot of stuff just is not made in the US these days.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        It's not the labour, it's the supply chains being the East. Apple don't make the component parts, they assemble them.

        For efficient manufacturing you need things like just-in-time delivery, and the ability to rapidly address problems. Much harder when things take weeks or months to arrive by boat, and you are in a different time-zone to the factory.

    • Exactly. There is a financial reason offshoring happens. Tariffs and taxes have to significantly exceed the savings of foreign manufacture before moving factories back happens. Regardless, the product price goes up. Now, it's true that domestic manufacture creates jobs, but when everyone's buying power is depressed by say... 20-50%, does reducing the unemployment rate by a couple percent matter? No. This is just more inflation, because every cycle lets the rich business owners mask profit increases in

      • Re: This is silly (Score:5, Insightful)

        by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Friday May 23, 2025 @08:37AM (#65398359) Journal
        They also have to show some odds of permanence, or at least long duration.

        Moving a production line isn't going to be quick or cheap; so you'll only want to do it if the cost disparity looks like it is going to remain for some time. Executive orders by a mercurial child who already changes his mind unpredictably and could stroke out any time are...not exactly...that sort of assurance.

      • Re: This is silly (Score:4, Insightful)

        by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Friday May 23, 2025 @08:38AM (#65398363)

        Indeed. Trump has never been pro-consumer. He is just a good enough liar to make enough people think he is on their side. Not that this takes good lying.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by shilly ( 142940 )

        Trump is definitely not pro-business, but in no way, shape or form is this a pro-business move. It does not help Apple. Apple wants prices in that sweet spot that maximises revenue, ie the multiplication product of price and volume. Substantially higher prices will reduce volumes even more substantially, so that revenues overall go down.

        There are also more than just financial reasons for offshoring. Concentrations of expertise and timely access to materials that matter for iPhone are available in China in a

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        iPhone screens are made by Samsung in factories in Korea and China. iPhone SoCs are made in Taiwan. Most of the other parts come from China.

        The reason they are assembled in China is because that's where the supply chains are. Labour cost has little to do with it, it's the cost of shipping components around the world, being able to pick up the phone during the day if there is a problem with a batch, and access to multiple sources for much of it.

        Apple isn't going to build all the factories needed to make the

      • We already have nearly full employment, too. Unemployment in the US is low by global standards, typically 4% or less. We don't have a systematic problem in America with people not being able to find jobs. In fact, ESPECIALLY in manufacturing, we have more jobs than people to fill them, and the manufacturing goes undone--high labor costs being a key reason the jobs left the country in the first place. The whole idea that the current America even need these manufacturing jobs is false. Americans have enough h

    • Just buy Chinese, one plus 13 R.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        That does not help. The fix here is to leave the US and relocate to a country with sane leadership.

    • The only way it can happen is with a streamlined design and better robotics.

    • Hence Apple will simply raise the prices by 25%, especially as all the other phone makers will face the same problem.

      I'm not sure why you would assume that all the other phone makers will face the same problem. The current administration is well-known for targeting specific companies and organizations for personal reasons.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        It would be pretty funny if the US president gave Korean, Chinese and Finnish phone manufacturers a 25% competitive advantage over the only major US one.

    • You don't get it. This tariff isn't about "manufacturing in the USA", it is about "how much of that money you're making aer you gonna give me, Tim?"

    • Manufacturing in the US would be far more than 25% more expensive. Hence Apple will simply raise the prices by 25%, especially as all the other phone makers will face the same problem. Get f***** US customers, a lot of you voted for this crap.

      What will be even cheaper is to bribe Trump; buy some DJT stock and some $TRUMP memecoins.

  • 25% is not a 'threat'. (Score:3)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Friday May 23, 2025 @09:02AM (#65398449)

    If Apple moved iPhone production entirely to the United States, the cost per unit could rise significantly. Analysts estimate that a U.S.-manufactured iPhone could retail for approximately $3,500. That’s a large increase from the current starting price of around $999 for models like the iPhone 16 Pro.

    Source: https://www.investopedia.com/w... [investopedia.com]

    Why the cost would increase:

    Labor costs in the U.S. are much higher than in China or India.

    Apple’s supply chain is optimized for overseas production. Rebuilding it in the U.S. would take years and require massive investment.

    Many components are made abroad. Sourcing or importing them would drive up costs.

    New manufacturing facilities would cost billions.

    Analysts say it would take 5 to 10 years to fully relocate production.

    Apple is instead expanding production in countries like India and Vietnam to reduce dependency on China.

    • A made in USA phone exists, and it's twice as expensive as its non-made in USA counterpart. So those analysts saying $3500 are probably right.
      https://shop.puri.sm/shop/libe... [shop.puri.sm] vs the Librem 5. Components are the same.
      Both are kind of crap phones, but for Linux nutjobs like me, a fun toy to have.

    • It's a threat. The US President does not have the right to pick out individual companies based on nothing but a whim to set individual 'tax rates' (or protection money, whatever you want to call it). The Constitution doesn't even give the President the power to set Tariffs at all. This is not the rule of law, it is rule by the whim of the head of state.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by msauve ( 701917 )
        Try to follow along. The Constitution means nothing to Trump. He'll do whatever he wants, there's no penalty for ignoring the Constitution except conviction after impeachment, which isn't going to happen with all the sycophants in Congress.
  • Have fun with this problem, Tim old buddy.

  • Easy solution for Apple (Score:5, Insightful)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Friday May 23, 2025 @09:11AM (#65398511)

    1. Make a big public announcement that you are committed to building a factory and are dedicated to manufacturing in America.
    2. Wait another 3.75 years claiming to be working on construction (or sooner - I mean the man is trying to be a dictator in the land of the 2nd amendment).
    3. Move on with your life pretending it all never happened.

    End result: Profits preserved, and Donny boy gets to clap his little hands about how good he is.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Pascoea ( 968200 )
      Maybe they can use one of the Foxconn shells [wikipedia.org] over in Wisconsin? Hell, that's even a new business idea: Obtain a big empty factory building, and run it like WeWork: Whatever company needs to use it to pretend to build domestic production for a bit until Dear Leader is distracted by the next new-shiny.

  • Google? (Score:3)

    by CoolCash ( 528004 ) on Friday May 23, 2025 @09:16AM (#65398529) Homepage
    Why not Google too?

    • Why not Google too?

      You mean like tariffs on the Google Pixel, Nest devices, and such? That could be done but the volume isn't large. He could threaten 25% tariffs on Samsung, but that's actually lower than the currently-suspended "reciprocal" tariff on South Korea (49%).

  • Why does anyone actually believe anything Trump says, including his tariff threats. Haven't we've seen him back down enough times to learn there's nothing behind the threat except bluster and a photo op?

    • With about 85% of the (world) population believing in all-powerful fantasy figures judging you after death, I'd say the gullability is strong in mankind.

  • From the "Of course, but maybe" act:

    "Of course slavery is the worst thing that ever happened. Every time it has happened â" black people in America, Jews in Egypt, every time a whole race of people has been enslaved, itâ(TM)s a horrible thing.

    But maybe every incredible human achievement in history was done with slaves. Every single thing where you go, âHow did they build those pyramids?â(TM) They just threw human death and suffering at them until they were finishedâ¦There is no

  • Trump is trying to do a useful thing here; as Tim Apple said, the US doesn't have the skills or factories necessary to do things like this. We need some self-sufficiency, some ability to produce our own goods, we can't rely on countries on the other side of the world that are hostile to us, or ones that could get into a local nuclear conflict. Something we should have learned from the pandemic is that supply chains can be fragile, and redundancy is good.

    Will this work? Probably not, but oh no, some luxury

  • Hilarious (Score:4, Insightful)

    by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Friday May 23, 2025 @09:38AM (#65398623) Journal
    Condiering Trump doesn't hire Americans [cnn.com] at his failing properties, he has no right to tell a company where to build its products.

    Of note from the story:

    Some former Trump club staffers who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity said Trump could attract more Americans to those temporary roles at his properties if his businesses raised the positionsâ(TM) wages or offered other perks.

  • Dave Chappelle sums it up best (Score:5, Funny)

    by sziring ( 2245650 ) on Friday May 23, 2025 @09:42AM (#65398647)

    Dave Chappelle summed it up best.
    https://youtu.be/inlDT62oGy8?s... [youtu.be]

  • Tim Apple (Score:3)

    by Freischutz ( 4776131 ) on Friday May 23, 2025 @09:45AM (#65398665)

    "...Tim Cook of Apple.."

    So the ten dimensional chess master has finally figured out that the man's name isn't 'Tim Apple' ... I suppose that's progress.

  • If it's because they don't build in the USA, then why limit this to just Apple? You could do the same to Microsoft and Google, both are American companies that don't build in the USA. (Samsung isn't American, so it's a different subject in this debate.)

    Instead of always wanting to punish and threaten everyone with a stick, he should instead opt to use a carrot and offer incentives to build in the USA. Of course, Trump has been fighting that option with the CHIPS act, but I figured it was more because it's a

  • Apple is NOT a national defense business (Score:5, Insightful)

    by strikethree ( 811449 ) on Friday May 23, 2025 @10:43AM (#65398827) Journal

    Pardon me, but could someone explain how the Office of the President of the United States has ANY authority to tell a business how to run itself? Where are the Checks and Balances here and why aren't they being effective? Does nobody care about the US Constitution and the USA as a whole anymore? Without the Constitution, there is no reason for anyone to cooperate or respect the Rule of Law.

    (I actually think that bringing manufacturing back is a good idea... but not like this)

  • Legality of Targeting a Specific Company (Score:3, Funny)

    by ipl me asap ( 777203 ) on Friday May 23, 2025 @10:53AM (#65398869)

    Is it even legal in the USA to target a specific company with tariffs? Ha, look at me thinking that matters now anyways.

    • Re:Legality of Targeting a Specific Company (Score:4, Informative)

      by SoftwareArtist ( 1472499 ) on Friday May 23, 2025 @11:41AM (#65398995)

      No, it's completely and totally illegal. The president has no authority to tell individual companies where and how to manufacture their products and to punish them if they don't. This is authoritarianism. Basically everything he's done since taking office has been in complete disregard of the law and his (very limited) constitutional powers. So courts keep ruling against him, and he ignores them and does it anyway. At that point, the only recourse to prevent the complete collapse of democracy is for congress to impeach him. But congress is controlled by republicans who are happy to let him do it, so the constitution has now become meaningless. America is no longer a democracy.

  • Electronics manufacturing requires hundreds of thousands of- if not millions - of people doing manual labor. Much of this can be automated. Trouble is, cheap manpower is available overseas for a few pennies per piece on average in facilities with poor environmental compliance. Not a livable wage by western standards, and probably near poverty by local ones. Definitely not sustainable by any definition despite greenwashing (see the amount of ocean freight/bunker fuel required to make these supply chains work

  • Call Trump's bluff (Score:3)

    by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Friday May 23, 2025 @11:55AM (#65399047) Homepage

    Apple should simply raise prices. The resulting howls of indignation will make the Trump regime back down.

  • Apple should label the Trump Tariff (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jsepeta ( 412566 ) on Friday May 23, 2025 @12:25PM (#65399145) Homepage

    If Trump is going to continue to be an obstinate asshole - who doesn't understand the billions of dollars invested in Chinese manufacturing workflow which make it impossible to build the iPhone at scale in America - then Apple and other companies need to publicly call him out for the stupid harmful tariffs. Stop hiding the fees and kissing his fat ass. Consumers can see the prices rising -- now explain to them that it is Dumbass Donald's fault.

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